Hold your arms out wide open & prepare to embrace some exciting changes over at Helloworld Travel’s wholesale businesses designed to make Agents’ lives a little easier.

After 18-months of changes within the wholesale branch, Helloworld Travel Limited’s Cinzia Burnes admitted over the weekend that the inhouse wholesale business isn’t quite where it needs to be and “things aren’t perfect”.

The Executive Director and Head of Wholesale & Inbound said the company hasn’t “done everything we need to do” and is hoping to usher along the transformation by rolling out a range of new improvements over the coming months, including:

1. Less Time on Hold

Sick of being on hold? Want faster wholesaler assistance?

Cinzia feels your pain, which is why she recently hired some 15 new staff members to help man the phones.

She said she hopes the new additions will reduce the wait time on the 96,630 calls they receive every 100 days (or 400,000 calls every year).

Hint: if you want to get through to an operator faster, avoid calling at 11.00am and 2.00pm, which Cinzia says are peak periods.

2. A New Version of Ready Rooms

If you’re not a big fan of the current version of Ready Rooms then you’ll love Cinzia’s big news – a new version is in development.

She said the new version will have all the “bells and whistles” Agents have been asking for.

In the meantime, Travel Agents are being urged to re-visit the current site as it was recently updated with additional content and is just short of 300,000 hotels.

3. Famils, famils, famils

Were you one of the 490 participants on one of 50 Helloworld Travel wholesaler famils over the last 12 months?

They’re fun for you and they’re great exposure for the brand, that’s why Travel Agents can expect the group to host more famils in 2018.

4. New Destinations

If you’ve checked out the group’s new brochures, you might have noticed the introduction of new destinations.

Among the ones expected to be popular among travellers are Central Europe, Scandinavia and Italy.

Touching on the Italy product, Cinzia said the group has appointed a local DMC to manage guests, “which means your clients will be looked after by someone based in Italy and transfers and every other product will be booked through them”.

5. Frequent Flyer Points on Sunlover Bookings

Your Qantas Frequent Flyer members will love this one.

From January 2018, Sunlovers Holidays will join other Helloworld Travel wholesalers by allowing travellers to earn Frequent Flyer points on new bookings with flights.

6. Trip Dollar$ on Insider Journeys Group Bookings

In a few days (from 1 December), Agents who book groups through Insider Journeys will receive Trip Dollar$.

Cinzia said the change was made after receiving numerous requests from consultants.

7. Compendiums per room NOT per booking

Cinzia says the business is replacing a somewhat “dumb” system of giving out one $30 compendium per booking, with a fairer system of a $20 compendium per room or cabin.

She explained that with the current system Agents were either giving it to their clients and seeing families fight over the benefit or throwing it in the bin in order to avoid any arguments.